Clearwire restores service in Seattle after outage

It’s been a tough few days for Seattle area high-tech companies. First, Amazon.com’s EC2 service went down, causing alarm among many startups that rely on AWS. Now, word is that Clearwire — the Kirkland-based mobile broadband company — experienced a failure of its Seattle area network earlier today. The company says that the problem has since been resolved.

Clearwire offered this statement to GeekWire:

Some customers in the Seattle area experienced a temporary degradation in service this morning which lasted several hours. The issue has been resolved and service levels are back to normal.

Clearwire can’t really afford these sorts of problems. A lawsuit filed in federal court in Seattle alleged that the company previously engaged in a scheme to boost revenue by offering poor service to customers in certain areas, thus increasing the likelihood that they would ultimately cancel their subscription plans early.

John Cook is GeekWire's co-founder and editor, a veteran reporter and the longest-serving journalist on the Pacific Northwest tech startup beat. Follow him @johnhcook and email john@geekwire.com.

Comments

Mike

I’m one of those customers. Service interruptions with Clearwire unfortunately isn’t unusual. When I contacted customer support (which typically is quite good) I was told service would be restored in “two to 24 hours.” Then I asked when that time period began and the tech replied, “I don’t know.” Sometimes I feel as it Clearwire’s mission statement is, “Be marginally less corrupt and inept than cable or cell companies.”

http://www.kirillzubovsky.com Kirill Zubovsky

Same here. I also asked if I’d get reimbursed for the downtime, and the tech didn’t really know, his excuse was: “Well, usually it’s non refundable, but in this case we’d have to see. The networks don’t actually go down often.” (oh yes they do). When the service is eventually restored, I’d have to call’em back and ask to get +1 day on my account. Would be nice, since I had to spend $2 on a coffee to get some internet :)

Drowlost

Take some personal responsibility for your choices in life, you did not have to spend money on coffee and unless you work from home you didn’t need the internet either.

I am also a Clearwire customer in the Seattle area. Actually this is the first outage I have experienced in a year. I must have been the first person to call in and report it because their call center didn’t have a clue when I called early in the morning.

Jonathan Smooty

I am also a Clearwire customer in the Seattle area. Actually this is the first outage I have experienced in a year. I must have been the first person to call in and report it because their call center didn’t have a clue when I called early in the morning.

tomw

I’ve been a subscriber for 4 months. When the service works its great, but it goes down way too often. Today I called in the early morning and a familiar recorded device explained they were aware and working to correct a problem in my vicinity. I an located 100 yds from the nearest antennae. This evening after reporting all was repaired, my signal was one light vs. the normal 5 light strength. When i called, the service tech who answered my call said the disruption was due to storms and tornadoes. I described our recent fine weather here and asked if the network was so vulnerable that storms in the midwest and southeast were disrupting local service. He was in NY and didnt know. I suggested honesty and requested a call from someone who could convince me not to cancel and return to crappy expensive cable service…we’ll see

BillB

Ever hear of Project Star Trek? Check it out.

johnhcook

Just FYI: The last link in the piece above links to our story on “Project Star Trek.”

Rainycity1

Well, they’re still having problems this morning. I’ve had spotty internet access since 5:00 a.m., with no access most of the time.

J C Wise

My Wimax, here the cinr has been atleast -1bB since april the 11th… After they rolled out the system wide bandwidth capping to the towers here in Georgia…. Kinda sux lol